


patience unto petals

by lumailia



Category: RWBY
Genre: .idk what's up with the lore though just roll with it, Cute Kids, F/M, Fluff, Like PURE fluff, RoseGarden, after the Final Battle, good guys win, happy endings, so pure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-14 22:23:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17516930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumailia/pseuds/lumailia
Summary: When the dawn rises on a new Remnant, Ruby finds herself with a choice to make.*birthday gift for bicaroliina, cross-posted from my tumblr





	patience unto petals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bicarolina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bicarolina/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Sarah! Enjoy the fluff :)

+

            Ruby knows the weight of victory. From the first round at the Vytal Tournament, to the triumph at Haven, to the narrow win in Vacuo under a shadow of tragedy, she’s packed as many wins into her belt as she has bullets. But this is not just victory. This is finality—and it does not feel the same.

            Her boots crunch on dust and rubble. Her eyes, wrung out with magic, burn. It’s over. Salem is free. Oz is free. The Gods have left humanity to keep growing from its ashes, and Ruby is the one who convinced them they could. She should feel glorious. She is hope made flesh, a silver flare against a formidable night, a simple honest soul.

            But who will she be when the dawn breaks? When the dust settles? Who is the hero when the world is saved?

            Crescent Rose is heavy in her arms, but she keeps walking, trudging, to where her team should be waiting in the distance, far out of the reach of her blast.

            Beacon is gone. Not fractured, not frozen. Gone. The future that once felt so secure now lies around her in heaps of crumbled stone and mangled steel, the bodies of heroes and ossified Grimm caught in the empty spaces between them. _We’ll rebuild,_ she tells herself, but they may not need to, with the pools dried up and the Grimm set to dwindle. Tomorrow, the sun will rise on a brand-new Remnant, one that is as whole as it is broken. Ruby will be brave for it; that much she cannot let go.

            “There she is!” calls a bright, familiar voice from up ahead. Ruby squints into the night, and what she sees gives her the strength to smile. Yang is rising to the top of a pile of rubble, flanked by the smaller silhouettes of Blake and Weiss. “Guys, it’s Ruby! She made it!”

            Her teammates come clambering down the pile, moonlight bringing out the joy on their faces. It sets a giddy warmth coursing through Ruby, and she stows Crescent Rose on her back and breaks into a run.

            Yang’s arms wrap around her first, crushing her in against her chest, and Weiss and Blake hold onto them both. Ruby weaves her arms into the tangle. Their knees buckle, and they crumple together, mingling sighs of relief that soon turn to sobs.

            They won. They _won._

            Slowly, they pull apart and glimpse each other’s tear-streaked faces. Weiss grabs Yang and Ruby’s hands, prompting Blake to do the same. They kneel together as a completed circuit, four pieces of one powerful heart.

            Oz was wrong about a lot of things, but there was one he was right about: saving the world was never supposed to be done alone. Even the bravest of heroes need teams at their backs.

            Blake, surprisingly, is the first to break the silence. “I can’t believe we did it.”

            “I can,” says Ruby. “We did everything right.”

            “Save for all the mistakes,” Weiss chimes in.

            Laughter spreads among them, and they embrace again, heads touched together. What a strange sight they must be to the gods, alive and whole against a backdrop of death and ruin.  

            “Hey, guys—will we be Team RWBY forever?” Yang asks.

            Ruby meets her sister with a soft smile. “We’d better be.”

            Movement pulls Ruby’s gaze over her sister’s shoulder. Six more bodies are descending the rubble pile, pumping their arms. Sun and Ilia are on the outside, Jaune, Ren, and Nora not far behind. And then there is Oscar at the front and center. Oscar, who Ruby wasn’t sure would live. Oscar, who is now fully himself, his soul all alone in his body.

            Ruby whispers his name, and her team knows to part from her. She lifts herself from the ground, watching with caged breath as Oscar stops just feet from where she stands. Before the battle, he told her he loved her, knowing full well he might never get another chance. But here they are, steps away from an embrace, victorious.

            She runs first. He takes her gladly in his arms, placing one gloved hand on her head and the other on the center of her back, holding her close. When they first met, he was a good three inches shorter than her, but now, he’s reached the perfect height for her to lay her head on his shoulder. They stand there a moment, swaying, feeling each other’s heartbeats, before he shifts his head to glimpse her. Always, he has looked at her with reverence, but in these last few years of the war, Ruby has seen something warmer in his eyes.

            _Love_ , she calls it. It has to be love.

            “You did it,” he whispers. “You saved us.”

            She smiles up at him. “I had help.”

            He leans down, brushing their noses, and Ruby figures moments after saving the world isn’t the worst time to have her first kiss—especially when it’s with a boy she thinks she might love, too.

            But he jerks away suddenly, locking his hands on her arms. “Ruby, look behind you.”

            Fear slides into her stomach. She peers over her shoulder and gasps, but not at the sight of any enemy. Glowing green vines have broken up through the rubble, blanketing metal and stone in an upholstery of leaves and soft red roses. Red specks of light dance around them like fireflies.

            “It’s…a miracle,” Oscar exhales.

            Ruby beams. “It’s magic.”

            She takes his hand and leads him into the roses. Her friends follow suit. She watches Yang and Weiss grab bunches of them, only for more to grow back in their place. Sun tucks one behind Blake’s hair, and she spreads the favor to Ilia. Jaune and Nora have already fallen into the flowers, Ren standing between them, laughing. The roses are a gift, Ruby decides. A promise that the night will be kind to these weary heroes. After all they’ve been through, they deserve it.

            Oscar picks a rose and holds it out to Ruby. She takes it between her fingers, studies it. Then she leaves him with a kiss on his cheek and skips off to celebrate with her team.

+

            Ruby knows a lot about Oscar. His father’s name was Atticus. His mother’s was Juniper, which Nora maintains could only be the work of destiny’s hand. They’re both dead, but his Aunt, Calliope, must still be worried sick about him. Oscar worries about everyone. He likes two sugars in his coffee, but no cream. He hums in his sleep. The wrap around his neck is made of mutton cloth, and it hides a snakebite from his childhood, two once-violet scars that have turned pinkish red with time. They look like bruises, and sometimes, Ruby daydreams about peeling back the cloth and touching them, assuring him he doesn’t have to hide them anymore. All their bodies are topographies of battle wounds now, fresh cuts hatched over jagged scars, knees forever ruddy from taking too many falls.

            They’re staying at a boarding house in the intact sector of the city, and Oscar’s room is across from hers. She’s supposed to be sharing with Nora, but since Nora was out the second she face-planted onto her bed, she has no problem sneaking out of the room to knock at Oscar’s door.  

            He opens the door shyly. Like her, he’s still in full hunting gear, wrapped in the scent of dust and fire and fresh air, but by his slow steps into the hall, she can tell his energy from the fight is waning.

            “Oh, hey Ruby. Can I help you?” he asks, his right eye doing that awkward squint it always does when he’s unsure of something.

            “Can I come in?”

            He nods quickly. “Sure, of course.”

            She laughs, a cue for him to cut off his nervous rambling before it starts. His room is dark, though the curtains are open, letting in a blue wash of moonlight. Still, he can see enough to guide himself to the edge of the bed. Ruby sits down beside him, right against his hip.  

            “I guess you couldn’t sleep either,” he says.

            “Well, it’s kind of hard to sleep after you just met the gods, cleansed the soul of the most dangerous sorceress to ever exist, and shot the magical equivalent of a nuclear blast out of your eyeballs, so…”

            “Fair point.”

            “How’s your head?” she asks, quick to turn the subject from herself. Energy may have her strung out, but she’s still too tired to process everything she’s seen, everything she’s done.

            Oscar shrugs. “Emptier, I guess,” he offers. “I wouldn’t say I feel _better_ , with him gone, but maybe I will, once it really sets in that it’s over. You ended the cycle.”

            “ _We_ ended it,” Ruby corrects him. She places a hand on his shoulder. “You’re as much a hero as I am, Oscar. We never would’ve made it this far without your strategies. And for me—well, there’s a lot we’ve faced that you’ve made easier to shoulder.”  

            His brows pull together. “What do you mean by that?”

            “You remember when I lost my uncle at the Battle of Shade,” Ruby starts. “Yang and I could barely comfort each other, she was so distraught over both Qrow and Raven, and Blake and Weiss had gone to retrieve the sword. And you let me mourn. You protected me, and then you just…held me. That’s when I knew, for as long as you were going to be yourself, I could count on you to be by my side.”

            “It took until then to realize it?”

            She feels a blush run over her face. “Well, I mean…”

            He grasps her hand where it rests on her shoulder. “Ruby. I know what you mean,” he says. “You know, um. About what I said earlier. Before you kind of rushed head-first into the wrath of the gods and stuff—”

            “—that you love me?”

            Oscar nods. “Yeah. That.”

            Suddenly eager for something to fix on, if only to push past her racing heart, she pulls his hand onto her lap and runs her thumb over his palm, bunching the orange fabric of his glove. “I’m sorry I just ran off. We were running out of time.”

            “I know.”

            Ruby clears her throat. “Well, I love you too. If that helps,” she says, as firmly as she can. “Wow, we are really, _really_ awkward.”

            “I am not going to argue that,” he says. “But you love me. Cool. I think that’s what I’m supposed to say? I’m having a little trouble thinking straight.”

            “Trust me, you’re not the only one,” she says punctuated with a shy, nervous laugh. “Hey, do you ever take off these gloves?”

            He flinches, jarred by her question. “When I go to bed, usually. Why?”

            “I just don’t think I’ve ever seen you without them. And if you’re going to be my boyfriend…”

            Oscar makes a noise somewhere between a gasp and a squeak. “Boyfriend?”

            “I mean, we just said we love each other—you did mean that kind of love, right?”

            “Yes! Yes, I did. Ruby, I’ve had a crush on you since I was fourteen; that’s like, four years of getting nervous whenever you look at me.”

            Ruby’s blush deepens. “Well, I’m glad to know it was mutual.”

            “Here,” he says, guiding her fingers to the hourglass straps that keeps his gloves secure on his hands. “You have to unfasten these, first. Then the glove.”

            She pops the buttons and peels the glove off with the straps—not quite the method he specified, but it gets the job done. His palms are rough like hers, textured in calluses and scars, yet his touch is achingly gentle. He gives her his other hand, lets her remove the glove, and they thread their fingers together, turning in until their knees bump and their faces are in perfect parallel.

            This first night on a new Remnant is a quiet one. Their nervous breaths sound a cacophony that fills up the room. Moonlight colors both their faces, but when Ruby looks at Oscar, it’s like looking into the dawn. Under the weight of finality, he is the lightness, the bright new beginning. She is looking at her epilogue.

            And she _loves_ him.

            He leans in first. She closes her eyes, waiting for the feeling of his lips on her own, but they brush her nose, instead.

            Oscar draws away, hovers inches from her face. “Sorry. I’m aiming in the dark, here.”

            “Well, you missed,” she says. Then she shifts her head and closes the distance between them.

            Kissing Oscar makes sense. Neither of them is very good at it, but they’re happy and eager to keep learning, treasuring the softness of each other. She lifts a hand to grasp his cheek, then his jaw. Her fingers trail down his neck, brushing the cloth wrapped there, and he helps her untie it. When she pads a thumb over the scars, he smiles against her mouth.

            “I feel like I’m dreaming,” he confesses, breathlessly.

            “I’m so glad this isn’t a dream.”

            She kisses him twice more—once for celebration, and the next out of pure love—then flops down onto the bed. At some point, they fall asleep, wrapped in each other’s arms with their legs dangling in a knot off the side of the bed.

            It isn’t long, though, before Oscar is shaking her awake, telling her to come to the window.

            Dawn has made it here. The low sun turns the sky into a gradient of vibrant color, clouds brushing the sky in swatches of pink and purple. There’s a surreal quality to it, like a painting, but at the same time being alive has never felt more real, more visceral.

            She’s seen a hundred sunrises, but none with as much promise as this one.

            “Hey, Ruby,” says Oscar, glimpsing her. “If the war is over, and we don’t have to be Huntsmen—who are we supposed to be?”

            Ruby takes his hand, and the hopeful light of the rising sun spreads across their cheeks.

            “Whoever we want.”


End file.
